Introduction

Writing in the introduction to the Church in Wales report, Rural Wales Consultative Document, Robin Morrison (2003) recognizes the need to reconstruct the future of our rural communities. He goes on to ask questions about the role, to this end, of all relevant agencies, including that of local churches. ‘How will the churches have to change’, he asks, ‘in order to engage in new ways?’ The report concludes with wide-ranging ideas and proposals among which are key recommendations concerning local churches. Included among these recommendations is the statement that churches should open their doors and let the world rediscover their true role. The report goes on to insist that many local churches need a massive image make-over, and that clergy need to be more people friendly, welcoming, proactive, open, and involved.

This notion of churches needing an image make-over is taken up by others. Indeed, given a backcloth of controversial trends in what some see as challenges to the orthodoxy of the Anglican Church, coupled with financial difficulties and falling attendance, it is perhaps not surprising to find that there is a trend among theological writers to see major changes in the way the Anglican Church should present itself.